Location: In Connecticut, on the Housatonic River near its mouth at Long Island Sound.

Posts: 11,189

New Mac/Safari malware

According to a May 2 MSNBC report, “a malware version of the popular MacDefender antivirus application is confusing and infecting” Mac users. People searching in Google Images with Safari have had the fake MacDefender downloaded to their hard drives. If launched, it warns that they have been infected with viruses that only the fraudulent MacDefender can remove.

An easy (and obvious) defense is to go to Safari > preferences > general and uncheck the “Open ‘safe’ files after downloading” option.

If you find you have been attacked, the MSNBC article has directions for removing the pest from your system.

According to Randy B. Singer, writing on TidBITS, MacDefender “does not install spyware, it is not a virus, and it does not damage your Macintosh in any way.” It sounds as if it may be some overly industrious marketing scheme. Regardless, sounds like a good idea to get rid of it.